Melvins’ Buzz Osborne on ‘Thunderball’ and the Primordial Ooze
‘Thunderball,’ the freshest release from Melvins 1983 featuring original drummer Mike Dillard, explodes onto the scene and invites us to re-explore the primal origins of this incredible band.
It feels like a fresh tremor from a band that has long operated on its own frequency. For Buzz, it’s a recalibration to their enduring, almost accidental genesis. This is a band that, four decades in, still manages to sound like nothing else, avoiding nostalgia by simply being too busy to look back. And if you think you know what “influence” means, Osborne’s likely got a David Bowie deep cut or a forgotten Seattle punk outfit that’ll re-educate your ears.
Back in Montesano, Washington, a miserable little town, two outcasts found each other: Buzz Osborne and Mike Dillard. They hated the same things, loved the same weird music, and out of that shared antagonism, the Melvins were born. They grew up together, learned to play together, and they’ve stayed friends all these years. Now, from that same primal slime comes ‘Thunderball,’ the latest Melvins 1983 record featuring original drummer Mike Dillard. Buzz wanted this one bombastic, and by all accounts, he got it. But ‘Thunderball’ isn’t just the two of them. This time around, they roped in some real sonic assassins: Void Manes (noise, creepy machine vocals) and Ni Maîtres (noise, upright bass). These two pushed ‘Thunderball’ beyond the expected, injecting a jolt of abstract electronic hell into the Melvins’ already gnarly sound. This is the Melvins, four decades in, still unique and a true representative of the real deal.
Today’s Melvins lineup features Buzz Osborne, Dale Crover, and Steven McDonald (Redd Kross), but the band’s history is marked by a series of unique and ever-evolving configurations, with the latest Melvins 1983 record certainly being one of them.
“I don’t give a fuck what you think a record should be.”
You’ve been pretty open about your less than rosy memories of Montesano. Hated everything about that town, but then you’ve got this whole Melvins 1983 thing going with Dillard, like a direct line back to that starting point. How do you reconcile that early sense of alienation with revisiting the 1983 lineup? Is ‘Thunderball’ partly a way to reclaim or recontextualize those very early formative years through a lens of total Sonic dominance, rather than just being stuck in a small town?
Buzz Osborne: We do Melvins 1983 because we feel like it. That is it. It is not anything other than that. The fact that I hate the town has nothing to do with it. The fact that I want to do things with Mike Dillard, that is what is important about this. As far as the town is concerned, there is no connection.
You mentioned wanting ‘Thunderball’ to be “bombastic,” and Mike Dillard called it a lovely blend of beautiful noise and gut busting grooves. Mission accomplished, for sure, but when you set out with that specific goal of bombastic, what’s the first image, or even just a feeling that comes to mind? Is it about sheer volume, the complexity of the arrangements, or something else entirely? What does bombastic truly mean in the Melvins universe?
It means loud and dynamic. What does it mean to you?
For me, bombastic in the Melvins’ sense means heavy dynamics that build an intense, almost physical experience demanding your full attention.
This collaboration sounds like pure magic. You essentially had them send you heaps of abstract electronic debris, and you played Sonic architect, dropping it where it worked. That’s a wild way to build a record. What was the most surprising moment for you during that process where one of their contributions just clicked in a way you totally didn’t expect?
I always wanted to work with those guys but it has been complicated. Of course it is magical. Millions of people should buy it. I like what they are doing. We have not incorporated stuff like that before so we made it happen. A lot of people have heard of Throbbing Gristle but they actually never have heard what they do. There are so many bands out there doing regular rock type stuff.
It’s awesome to have Mike Dillard back in the fold. You said you have to write songs for Melvin’s 1983 that he can play, because it’s certainly not all easy. But that doesn’t mean it’s not good. It’s just different. Can you pull back the curtain a little bit on that? What’s the fundamental difference in approaching songs from Mike compared to, say, Dale? And how does that difference push you to write new ways?
Okay, well, Mike Dillard is not a drummer full time and we are full time musicians. He is a union machinist, which means his 40 hour a week job is union machining and not drumming, whereas we play music all the time as our only form of existence. So we are a little more adept at what we’re doing. And I take that in mind with him. It’s pointless for me to make a bunch of Rubik’s Cube type of songs for a guy who doesn’t always play the drums. So I don’t do that. I intentionally write songs, and I know that he would have an easier time playing than normal, and that’s a lot of fun to do. I mean, not all the songs that the Melvins do are intensely difficult, but a lot of our music is very difficult to play. I think the fact that we do it in a way that is very difficult and fluid means that people don’t notice that you’ve done anything at all.
‘Thunderball’ clocks in at around 35 minutes, a concise beast by Melvins standards, and you intentionally left out the humorous tracks this time. Was there a conscious decision to make this record more focused? What’s the power in that kind of stripped-down approach, especially when you’re still squeezing in these massive 10-minute epics like ‘Short Hair with a Wig’ and ‘Victory of the Pyramids’? Does stripping away the humor open up new spaces?
Humor doesn’t mean it’s less focused. Humor doesn’t mean it’s less direct. You know, we did a record a long time ago, quite a few years ago, called ‘Everybody Loves Sausages’ and on that record were songs by bands that maybe people hadn’t thought were big influences on us. One of those influences, one of the songs we covered, was a band called The Fugs and what I was hoping was that people would listen to this record realising that these are the things that the Melvins are into. It ended up not really working out that way, people just looked at it like it was just a regular covers album, and it really wasn’t intended that way. So one of our main influences is The Fugs and humor in general. I mean, we’re called the Melvins. We’re doing records called ‘Bullhead’ and ‘Houdini’ and things like that. It’s weird for me to have to explain this. I wanted to make a record that was the way that it is, and humorous. A lot of people are upset with that sort of thing, because they have some idea in their head about how a record should be. It’s like, you know what? I don’t really give a fuck what you think a record should be. I care about what I think a record should be, and if that’s the kind of thing I want to put on it, and that’s what I’m going to do. And so, no, it wasn’t a conscious decision to make this record more focused or more concise by taking out the humor. The humor is that records with their quote / unquote humor are just as important and just as valid as anything we’ve ever done.
Okay, if you had to pick one track off ‘Thunderball’ that best embodies everything you’re at right now, which one would it be and why?
I don’t know. It’s hard for me to make these kinds of decisions. I would say my favorite track on the record, for no particular reason, is ‘Venus Blood.’ I really like the way that one sounds. Yeah, that would be my favorite. No real reason. It doesn’t embody everything I’m at right now. I don’t know that anything would. We have a huge back catalog of music and history, and things that we’ve done. I’m not married to any of them, and I don’t hate any of them, either. So there you go.
While ‘Thunderball’ reconnects with the ’83 lineup, how do you manage to revisit your origins without falling into the trap of nostalgia? Is it simply a matter of injecting new blood, or is there a deeper mindset that keeps you pushing forward rather than looking back?
You know? I mean, it’s like, I can’t pick one album that’s a Melvins record, but people tend to want us to be that to be the case. I think if you spend more than 20 minutes listening to our stuff, it’s obvious that we don’t always do the exact same thing. How could we fall into nostalgia considering the vast multitude of things that we’ve already done? It doesn’t make any sense to me, as nostalgia means you fall into the same traps you always have.
“I would say one song that really made a big dent in me was the song ‘Quicksand’ off ‘Hunky Dory’ by David Bowie”
Please don’t kill me, I promise nothing. But I’ve got three more questions. Thinking back to when you were just a kid with headphones and your brain melting from the first real taste of records, what were the albums, the fanzines, and the noise that littered your room? Maybe just one track that cracked your skull open and made you think this. “This is it. This is the sound. This is what I want to make. This is what music is supposed to feel like.” Was there a moment like that when the Melvins really began to take shape?
Okay, so many songs, I don’t even know where to begin, but I would say one song that really made a big dent in me was the song ‘Quicksand’ off ‘Hunky Dory’ by David Bowie. I really like that song and it still makes a big dent in me. But as far as what music made me want to start a band, that one didn’t make me want to start a band, but it did get me thinking. I want to know who all these people are that he’s talking about and all these things he’s talking about. I think it’s a wonderful song, very meaningful, and meant a lot to me, and it’s probably had as much of an impact on me and how I turned out, and musically, how I turned out as a person, to some degree, as any other song on the face of the planet. So there you go.
All right, Buzz, picture this. You roll into my town, swing by my place for a late night spin session. What five records are you pulling to totally blow my mind? I’m talking about the weird gems, the stuff that gets you, that still drives you crazy hearing it, even after so many years in music.
Oh God, if I had to play you five records that I really like, I don’t know. I don’t know what would blow your mind. I have no idea. All I know is right now I really dig things like Amy Winehouse ‘Back To Black.’ I like that record a great deal. I like The Gun Club, ‘Fire of Love’ album a great deal, I like the TSOL ‘Dance With Me’ album a great deal, the Tom Waits ‘Blue Valentine’ record, and I like the Throbbing Gristle ‘Heathen Earth’ album, there’s five. Put those on back to back and see if anything changes. Who knows?
Okay, thinking back to those really early local shows you caught as a young kid. What was the vibe like? How strange or wild did things get? How did it mess with your head? Also, I’d love to hear about some lesser-known bands you were into back then that maybe people don’t talk about much.
Okay. Well, contrary to what you might believe, considering the first question, the town that I lived in had no shows, certainly not the ones you would be thinking of, no shows at all and no record store, nothing…but later, when I became mobile and could move, I saw a lot of shows that I really liked. I saw Iggy Pop, The Damned, The Ramones, Black Flag and tons of bands I thought were really great. And bands that I liked in Seattle I thought were really good. I like this band called The Human a great deal. I saw this really weird band called Extreme Hate, and the bass player of the band, not long after the first couple times I saw him, he hung himself when his girlfriend broke up with him and he penned a letter, a suicide letter, to the front of his chest that said, I did this because of you. That left an impression. And I really liked Poison Idea at the time, and The Wipers, those were great bands. And there’s a really weird band called Limp Richerds I liked a lot, and especially their recorded stuff. I had a tape of their stuff that I thought was really cool. And the band that was close to them, the Mudhoney predecessors, a band called Mr. Epp & the Calculations, I liked that a great deal. And I’m sure there’s a bunch of other bands. Oh, there was a band in Seattle I liked, called the Silly Killers. They were great, lesser known. I would say there’s some right there, all right. And I think that’s the last of this. So thank you so much, and I’ll talk to you later. Bye, bye.
Klemen Breznikar
Headline photo: Melvins (2023) | Photo by Chris Casella
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